I like the FP City Commander tooling very much, and am a proud owner of Powered Commander, but I have never felt that it really captured the Ultra Magnus character design very well, so an articulated set of G1 armor has always been my intent.

There's been a few really fabulous versions that involved serious mods that I wasn't feeling up for(I'll slice and dice with the best of 'em, but I didn't want to F-up any more G1 Magni than necessary!), then G60 came along with his great approach!

I've taken most of the ideas from his, tweaked a few of them to my own tastes, and started scratch-building some key parts to make the whole thing nice and stable. Old fashioned fabrication for the prototype, but I'm planning on knocking up some Shapeways prints for the final parts so I can have some nice clean pieces and can share them with anyone else who likes the approach.

Anyway, without further rambling, my WIP:

Update:

Update: New Torso Design:

V.1 Chest Compartment:

MAGNUS STOMPTM Boot Connectors:

Attached Files:

AWESOME!!!!.... I like that you are incorporating shapeways...
since when I started my WIP I didn't even know about shapeways hehe
look great already, would love some colored WIP shots though!
My magnus should be arriving in 1or2 week tops so I can finally finish this one up
we could share some more ideas, wadcha think?

But the one I'm struggling with most is working out a way to get Little-Magnus's elbow joints to not bow-outward under the weight of the Ultra-Arms. They're just friction joints and they're not stiff enough to support the arms.

I've build two different types of braces (one clips on over his forearm & wheel against the back, and the other, which works marginally better, pegs into the fist and also into the screw-hole of his shoulder), both of them are strong enough to get him to hold together (as seen above), but neither is as solid or clean as I would like :/

OTOH I'm super pleased with the look of the Energon-Tank-Weapon connectors, as they look very Smoke-stack'y IMO, and I hope to mount them in vehicle mode too, just to differentiate Magnus and Prime that much more.

On yours, I can't tell WHERE the shoulder-connectors are attached, I assume you're pegging into the fists somehow, but I can't tell from the pics...

Credit goes to G60 for the original design-concept,but I'm doing a few things a bit differently (I-Gear's head and accessories for one.) Hopefully if my plan to Shapeways-print the key parts works, this can become an easy DIY for anyone that can't or doesn't want to get a City Commander

Stepped back and re-evaluated all the connection point options and realized that in a classic KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) moment, there was a very very effective way to bind the torso pieces all together in perfect lock step.

A few moments of scratch building later and bingo:

I LOVE what this did to his proportions, he looks solid and beefy now, and I couldn't be happier!

The only sacrifice was that I had to lose the Wind-vane-chest-shield attachment scheme, but that's cool, I may end up deciding to ditch the vane all together as Magnus will look more retro in truck mode that way.

Now the torso has a HUGE amount of space to work with, and since I have to build up an attachment point for the chest plate anyway I am now TOTALLY thinking Matrix-compartment...

man this is awesome. G60, sometimes your projects are so full of WTF I wonder what you are thinking, and then something like this comes around. I was trying to figure out how to configure the cab in such away to do my own magnus, and her it is, right in front of me.....

man this is awesome. G60, sometimes your projects are so full of WTF I wonder what you are thinking, and then something like this comes around. I was trying to figure out how to configure the cab in such away to do my own magnus, and her it is, right in front of me.....

man I'm glad I keep surfing radicons.....

DL, I can't wait to see this done.

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Heheh no worries... I'll share all my secret's
as soon as I get back to work on the project!!

but DL's versie here, has motivated me to get back on track

So DL I'll show you my shoulder mounts today or the next.. give me time

Nicely done Eric! I like how u've incorporated the arms to the main body. I can imagine the uphill task ur gonna face to perfect the torso...Anyway...man...if this kind of talent keeps up, I'll be out of part time work!

man this is awesome. G60, sometimes your projects are so full of WTF I wonder what you are thinking, and then something like this comes around. I was trying to figure out how to configure the cab in such away to do my own magnus, and her it is, right in front of me.....

Nicely done Eric! I like how u've incorporated the arms to the main body. I can imagine the uphill task ur gonna face to perfect the torso...Anyway...man...if this kind of talent keeps up, I'll be out of part time work!

Click to expand...

A compliment from a master like you is very flattering, Sabrina

Now that I've got the basic torso STRUCTURE sorted out filling in the open space with matrix-chest-compartment greebles is going to be pretty easy from here

And no worries, I can build pretty well, I can can knock-out a decent drybrushed paintjob, but I'll NEVER be able to do the candy-coat paint work that you do...and I'm addicted to that paint

In principle it worked as I hoped, plenty of room, but my quick-and dirty hinge didn't *quite* leave me room to have the matrix sit as pretty as I originally planned, it's just like the Movie now where he can't quite get it to fit right

Going to have this part, the shoulder-binders, and the head mount all be one solid piece that fill in the upper torso when I get to my final design.

Next up, I'm going to work out the boot-attachments, it's getting very annoying having him slip out of his shoes and making the whole mess come apart every ten minutes

G60- Is yours just standing on the boot-platforms? Yours sits a little lower, and from the pics, it kind of looks like that's what you've got so far.... If you've worked out a proper attachment point, that's my current point of interest